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The Definitive Guide to SEO in 2018

By: Yauhen Khutarniuk

The year of 2017 was relatively calm for SEOs. But no matter how peaceful the current SEO landscape looks, it

doesn't mean you can lean back in your chair and relax!

Voice search, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are among the top buzzwords of the past twelve months.

While AI is more likely to affect PPC and advertising management, voice search is something that's going to disturb

the SEO community in the nearest future. Google's communication became even more disappointing in 2017. The

search giant has returned to its ‘black box' policy: webmasters detect major algorithm updates and the search

engine is reluctant to comment or provide any details. E.g. here's what we've got from Gary Illyes about Fred:

"From now on every update, unless otherwise stated, shall be called Fred".

SEOs detected about 5 Google algorithm updates in 2017 and all we know about them are various sorts of rumors

and speculations. So, to help you get to grips with the uncertainty, I've prepared a list of recommendations SEOs

should focus on right now.

SEOs detected about 5 Google algorithm updates in 2017 and all we know about them are various sorts of rumors

and speculations. So, to help you get to grips with the uncertainty, I've prepared a list of recommendations SEOs

should focus on right now.

Contents CHAPTER 1: Be findable ................................................................................................................................................... 2

CHAPTER 2: Master Panda survival basics ....................................................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER 3: Learn to combat Penguin ........................................................................................................................... 10

CHAPTER 4: Improve user experience ........................................................................................................................... 12

CHAPTER 5: Be mobile-friendly ...................................................................................................................................... 14

CHAPTER 6: Consider implementing AMP ..................................................................................................................... 16

CHAPTER 7: Earn social signals — the right way ........................................................................................................... 19

CHAPTER 8: Revise your local SEO plan ......................................................................................................................... 20

What's coming in SEO in 2018? ...................................................................................................................................... 22

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CHAPTER 1: Be findable The rule is simple — search engines won't rank your site unless they can find it. So, just like before, it is extremely

important to make sure search engines are able to discover your site's content — and that they can do that quickly

and easily. And here's how.

1. Keep a logical site structure

Good practice Bad practice

The important pages are reachable from the

homepage.

Site pages are arranged in a logical tree-like

structure.

The names of your URLs (pages, categories,

etc.) reflect your site's structure.

Internal links point to relevant pages.

You use breadcrumbs to facilitate navigation.

There's a search box on your site to help

visitors discover useful content.

You use rel=next and rel=prev to convert pages

with infinite scrolling into paginated series.

Certain important pages can't be reached via

navigational or ordinary links.

You cram a huge number of pages into one

navigation block — an endless drop-down

menu or something like this.

You try to link to each & every inner page of

your site from your homepage.

It is difficult for users to go back and

forth between site pages without resorting to

Back and Forward browser buttons.

An example of a logical site structure:

An example of a clean URL structure:

www.mywebsite.com/product-category-1/product-1

www.mywebsite.com/product-category-2/product-3

SEO PowerSuite tip: Check site structure with WebSite Auditor

In WebSite Auditor, go to the Pages dashboard, and look through the Links to Page column to identify any pages that

have no internal links pointing to them.

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Head to Site Audit and check the URLs section. Make sure the website doesn't have any overly long URLs or URLs

with dynamic characters (these are not search engine-friendly).

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You can further explore the website's structure using new Visualization tool. In Website Auditor, click on Site

Structure > Visualization. The software will then build a graphical map of your website. You can further use it to

detect internal linking issues, find orphan pages, evaluate and improve internal Page Rank.

2. Make use of an XML sitemap & RSS feeds

The XML sitemap helps search bots discover and index content on your site. This is similar to how a tourist would

discover more places in an unfamiliar city if they had a map.

RSS/Atom feeds are a great way to notify search engines about any fresh content you add to the site. In addition,

RSS feeds are often used by journalists, content curators and other people interested in getting updates from

particular sources.

Google says:

"For optimal crawling, we recommend using both XML sitemaps and RSS/Atom feeds. XML

sitemaps will give Google information about all of the pages on your site. RSS/Atom feeds

will provide all updates on your site, helping Google to keep your content fresher in its

index."

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Good practice Bad practice

Your sitemap/feed includes only canonical

versions of URLs.

While updating your sitemap, you update a

page's modification time only if substantial

changes have been made to it.

If you use multiple sitemaps, you decide to add

one more sitemap only if your current sitemaps

have already reached the limit of URLs (up to

50 thousand per each sitemap).

Your RSS/Atom feed includes only recently

updated items, making it easier for search

engines and visitors to find your fresh content.

Your XML sitemap or feed includes the URLs

search engines' robots are not allowed to

index, which is specified either in your

robots.txt or the robots meta tag.

Non-canonical URL duplicates are included into

your sitemap or feed.

In your sitemap, modification time is missing or

is updated just to "persuade" search

engines that your pages have been brought up

to date, while in fact they haven't.

SEO PowerSuite tip: Use XML sitemap builder in WebSite Auditor

WebSite Auditor has a built-in XML Sitemap Creator that lets you upload the freshest version of your sitemap to the

server right from the software. Go to Pages and click Sitemapat the top. Choose the pages to include, set the

frequency and the priority for your pages, and either save the sitemap to your hard drive or upload it straight to

your site.

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3. Befriend Schema markup

Schema markup is used to tag entities (people, products, events, etc.) in your pages' content. Although it does not

affect your rankings, it helps search engines better interpret your content.

To put it simple, a Schema template is similar to a doorplate — if it says 'CEO Larry Page', you know whom to expect

behind the door.

If you are looking for some extra help with the Schema markup, check out the detailed Structured Data

Implementation Guide from our team.

Good practice Bad practice

Review the list of available Schemas and pick

the Schemas to apply to your site's content.

If it is difficult for you to edit the code on your

own, you can use Google's Structured Data

Markup Helper.

Test the markup using Google's Structured Data

Testing Tool.

You use Schemas to trick search engines into

believing your page contains the type of info it

doesn't (for example, that it's a review, while it

isn't) — such behavior can cause a penalty.

4. Leverage featured snippets

A featured snippet (also called a position 0 result) is a search result that contains a brief answer to the search query.

The significance of position 0 is growing fast. The thing is that voice assistants will normally use featured snippets (if

available) to respond to users' queries, and then cite the address of the website where the information is published.

Featured snippets will pave your way to the answers provided by Amazon Echo or Google Assistant.

Any website has a chance to be selected for this sweet spot. Here are a few things you may do to increase your

chances of getting there:

1) Identify simple questions you might answer on your website;

2) Provide a clear direct answer;

3) Provide additional supporting information (like videos, images, charts, etc.).

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CHAPTER 2: Master Panda survival basics Panda is a filter in Google's ranking algorithm that aims to sift out pages with thin, non-authentic, low-quality

content. Early in 2016, Gary Illyes announced that Panda had become a part of Google's core ranking algorithm. The

bad news is that now you can't tell for sure if your rankings changed due to Panda or other issues.

1. Improve content quality

Good practice Bad practice

You need to create really useful, expert-level

content and present it in the most engaging

form possible.

It's not obligatory that all pages of your website

are like Wikipedia articles. Use your common

sense and make sure that the overall image of

your website is decent.

There is no recommended text content length.

A page should include as many words as it's

necessary to cover the topic or answer the

question of a user.

If you have user-generated content on your

website, make sure It's useful and free from

spam.

You block non-unique or unimportant pages

(e.g. various policies) from indexing.

Your website relies on "scraped" content

(content copied from other sites with no extra

value added to it). This puts you at risk of

getting hit by Panda.

You simply "spin" somebody else's content and

repost it to your site.

Many of your site's pages have duplicate or

very similar content.

You base your SEO strategy around a network

of "cookie-cutter" websites (websites built

quickly with a widely used template).

SEO PowerSuite tip: Use WebSite Auditor to check your pages for duplicate content

In WebSite Auditor, go to Site Audit -> On-page and see if you have any duplicate titles or meta descriptions on the

site.

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2. Make sure you get canonicalization right

Canonicalization is a way of telling search engines which page should be treated as the "standardized" version

when several URLs return virtually the same content.

The main purpose of this is to avoid internal content duplication on your site. Although not a huge offense, this

makes your site look messy — like a wild forest in comparison to a neatly trimmed garden.

Good practice Bad practice

You mark canonical pages using the

rel="canonical" attribute.

Your rel="canonical" is inserted in either the

<head> section or the HTTP header.

The canonical page is live (doesn't return a 404

status code).

The canonical page is not restricted from

indexing in robots.txt or by other means.

You've got multiple canonical URLs specified for

one page.

You've got rel="canonical" inserted into the

<body> section of the page.

Your pages are in an infinite loop of canonical

URLs (Page A points to page B, page B points to

page A). In this case, search engines will be

confused with your canonicalization.

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SEO PowerSuite tip: Use WebSite Auditor to check your pages for multiple canonical URLs

To check your site for canonicalization issues, go to Pages with multiple canonical URLs under Encoding and technical

factors.

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CHAPTER 3: Learn to combat Penguin Google's Penguin filter aims at detecting artificial backlink patterns and penalizing sites that violate its quality

guidelines in regards to backlinks. Penguin has become a part of the core Google algorithm. In its early days, Penguin

would hit an entire website. Currently, it's more granular and it demotes particular pages that have "bad" links.

Keeping your backlink profile natural is another key point to focus on in 2018.

Good practice Bad practice

Your website mostly has editorial backlinks,

earned due to others quoting, referring to or

sharing your content.

Backlink anchor texts are as diverse

asreasonably possible.

Backlinks are being acquired at a moderate

pace.

Spam, low quality backlinks are either removed

or disavowed.

Participating in link networks.

Having lots of backlinks from irrelevant pages.

Insignificant variation in link anchor texts.

SEO PowerSuite tip: Check backlinks' relevancy with SEO SpyGlass

Among other things, SEO SpyGlass can tell you whether your backlink pages are relevant to particular keywords. To

see this, go to the Backlinks tab, click on the Filter icon and then hit the plus (+) button to add a respective filtering

condition:

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SEO PowerSuite tip: Detect spammy links in your profile

Visit the Link Penalty Risk tab in SEO SpyGlass and see the penalty score associated with each link in your profile.

Click on the information (i) button to see the explanation why a particular link is considered dangerous.

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CHAPTER 4: Improve user experience Quite a few UX-related metrics have made their way into Google's ranking algorithm over the past years (site speed,

mobile-friendliness, the HTTPs protocol). Hence, striving to improve user experience can be a good way to up your

search engine rankings.

1. Increase site speed

There are quite a few factors that can affect page loading speed. Statistically, the biggest mistakes site owners make

that increase page load time are: using huge images, using large-volume multimedia or other heavy design elements

that make the site as slow as a snail.

Use Google's PageSpeed Insights to test your site speed and get recommendations on particular issues to fix.

SEO PowerSuite tip: Optimize your pages' loading time with WebSite Auditor

Google PageSpeed Insights are integrated into SEO PowerSuite's WebSite Auditor app to let you easily check if your

pages pass Google's speed and usability tests and see the exact issues you need to tackle. To check your pages'

loading time, simply go to WebSite Auditor's Page Audit dashboard and click on Technical factors.

2. Improve engagement & click-through rates

The Bing and Yahoo! alliance, as well as Yandex, have officially confirmed they consider click-through rates and user

behavior in their ranking algorithms. If you are optimizing for any of these search engines, it's worth trying to

improve these aspects.

While Google is mostly silent on the subject, striving for greater engagement and higher click-through rates tends to

bring better rankings as well as indirect SEO results in the form of attracted links, shares, mentions, etc.

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3. Consider taking your site HTTPs

In August 2014, Google announced that HTTPs usage is treated as a positive ranking signal.

Currently there is not much evidence that HTTPs-enabled sites outrank non-secure ones. The transition to HTTPS is

somewhat controversial, because

a) Most pages on the Web do not involve the transfer of sensitive information;

b) If performed incorrectly, the transition from HTTP to HTTPS may harm your rankings;

c) Most of your site's visitors do not know what HTTP is, so transferring to HTTPS is unlikely to give any conversion

boost.

4. Get prepared for HTTP/2

HTTP/2 is a new network protocol that should replace the outdated HTTP/1.1. HTTP/2 is substantially faster than its

predecessor. In terms of SEO, you would probably be able to gain some ranking boost due to the improved website

speed.

On December 19, 2016 Google gave the green light to HTTP/2 usage, with Google Webmasters tweeting:

"Setting up HTTP/2? Go for it! Googlebot won't hold you back."

There were no further details. However, the tweet assumes that Googlebot should support HTTP/2 from now on. It's

worth reading through the later discussion (dated May 2, 2017) about HTTP/2 between John Mueller and Bartosz

Góralewicz, from which you can find out that "Googlebot can access sites that use HTTP/2", and it's too early to drop

the support of HTTP/1.1 yet.

At the time of writing, about 83.18% of web browsers can handle HTTP/2. You can keep track of HTTP/2 adoption by

browsers on "Can I Use". In fact, if your website runs on HTTPS with ALPN extension, you can already switch to

HTTP/2 because most browsers already support it through these protocols.

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CHAPTER 5: Be mobile-friendly The number of mobile searches has finally exceeded the number of desktop searches. The inevitable has happened;

Google has begun experiments with mobile-first index. It means that their algorithms will primarily use the mobile

version of a site's content to rank pages from that site, understand structured data, and show snippets from those

pages in the results. It doesn't mean that your website will drop out of the index if it has no mobile version —

Google will fall back on the desktop version to rank the site. However, if you stick to mobile-unfriendly design, user

experience and rankings may suffer. After almost a year from the announcement of mobile-first index, it seems it is

still in a sandbox and it's not likely to be rolled out soon

Good practice Bad practice

Your website utilizes responsive design.

Your page's content can be read on a mobile

device without zooming.

You've got easy-to-tap navigation and links on

your website.

Your mobile website has high-quality content.

Structured data is available both on the mobile

and desktop version of the website.

Metadata is present on both versions of the

website.

You are using non-mobile-friendly technologies

like Flash on your webpages.

The mobile version of the website lacks

metadata, schema markup, quality content,

and in general is inferior to the desktop version.

SEO PowerSuite tip: Use the mobile-friendly test in WebSite Auditor

The mobile-friendly test in WebSite Auditor lets you quickly check if your site (or individual landing pages) passes

Google's mobile friendliness test, and gives you specific tips on going mobile if it doesn't.

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CHAPTER 6: Consider implementing AMP Accelerated Mobile Pages project (AMP for short) is a new Google initiative to build a better, more user friendly

mobile Web by introducing a new "standard" for building web content for mobile devices. Basically, this new

standard is a set of rules that form a simple, lighter version of HTML. And pages built in compliance with AMP are

sure to load super-quick on all mobile devices.

According to Google's VP of Engineering David Besbris:

AMP pages are 4x faster, and use 10x less data compared to non-AMP pages;

On average AMP pages load in less than one second;

90 percent of AMP publishers experience higher CTRs;

80 percent of AMP publishers experience higher ad viewability rates.

It seems that publishers are not happy with the over-minimalistic AMP specs. 2017 saw gradual improvements to

the functionality and looks of AMP pages, and even more is to come soon (check out the roadmap in the linked blog

post).

The official AMP Project help pages are the best starting point for those who want to try the new technology out.

AMP is a strictly validated format, and if some elements on your page do not meet the requirements, Google will

most likely not serve this page to users. So after building your AMP page, check if it passes the validation.

SEO PowerSuite tip: Manage all AMP pages in WebSite Auditor

If you're using WebSite Auditor for on-page SEO, here's how you can conveniently manage your AMP content with

the help of this software.

After creating a project for your website and letting the tool crawl all your pages, switch to the Pages dashboard in

the Site Structure module and click the "+" button in the upper right corner of your working area to create a new

workspace:

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Select the columns with the necessary data.

Then click the Filter icon and apply a filter to only include pages that contain AMP in their URL.

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And now you can instantly access all your AMP pages' SEO data, like canonical URLs, status codes, robots

instructions, broken resources and so on.

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CHAPTER 7: Earn social signals — the right way Search engines favor websites with a strong social presence. Your Google+ posts or Tweets can make it to Google

organic search results, which is a great opportunity to drive extra traffic. Although the likely effect of Twitter or

Facebook links on SEO hasn't been confirmed, Google said it treats social posts (that are open for indexing) just like

any other webpages, so the hint here is clear.

Good practice Bad practice

You attract social links and shares with viral

content.

You make it easy to share your content: make

sure your pages have social buttons, check

which image/message is automatically assigned

to the post people share.

You are wasting your time and money on

purchasing 'Likes', 'Shares' and other sorts of

social signals. Both social networks and search

engines are able to detect accounts and

account networks created for trading social

signals.

SEO PowerSuite tip: See your site's social signals in SEO PowerSuite

SEO PowerSuite incorporates signals from social media on many levels, but the easiest way to see the social media

popularity of particular pages is by going to WebSite Auditor and heading to Pages -> Popularity in social media.

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CHAPTER 8: Revise your local SEO plan Local SEO has always been about reviews, consistent NAP, and basic SEO best practices. No much to add here.

The research from 2017 by Local SEO Guide just proves my words. The research also mentions ‘engagement' as an

important ranking factor. I.e. Google expects you to interact with your customers. Among other things, remember to

respond to your reviews and update your listing with fresh photos, opening hours, etc.

Good practice Bad practice

Make sure your website mentions your

business name, address, phone (NAP) and that

this information is consistentacross all the

listings.

Optimize your Google My Business listing: NAP,

correct category, photos, reviews are the

priority.

Create incentives to get more positive reviews

and citations across the web.

Common SEO activities, such as on-page

optimization and link-building.

You are using a false business address.

Your website is listed in a wrong Google My

Business category.

There are reports of violations on your Google

My Business location.

SEO PowerSuite tip: Check website authority in SEO PowerSuite

Besides a number of purely local ranking factors, when ranking search results in the local packs, Google also relies

heavily on the sites' overall SEO authority (like its backlink profile and on-page metrics). And SEO PowerSuite allows

you to quickly estimate the SEO authority of your domain.

To do that, go to Domain Strength in any SEO PowerSuite app and see the overall domain score along with the

domain's key SEO metrics displayed in one convenient tab:

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What's coming in SEO in 2018?

Here are the main SEO trends I predict for 2018:

SEO remains part of multi-channel marketing

Customers can find your business through

social, paid search, offline ads, etc. Organic

search is an integral part of a complex path to

conversion. Just be aware of these other

channels and get savvy in additional spheres, if

necessary.

Enhancements in artificial intelligence

Thanks to RankBrain (the algorithm based on

artificial intelligence) Google has become

smart. It now also looks at synonyms, your

niche connections, location, understands

entities, etc. to see if you fit the bill (=query). It

looks like Google is actively moving in the

direction of predictive and personalized search

experience.

Voice search is gaining momentum

According to Forrester, in 2018, there will be

around 26.2 million households with smart

speaker devices in the U.S. alone. If the trend

keeps on in future, we will definitively evidence

a big shift in the way people consume

information and interact with the search

engines. It's both a challenge and an

opportunity for SEOs.

No quick results, no easy SEO

With enhancements in artificial intelligence

Google widened its net for spam ‐ and became

even better at detecting sites with low-quality

content or unnatural link patterns.

Traffic stays on Google increasingly

Google has definitely stepped up its effort to

provide immediate answers to people's

searches. And, with the increasing number of

featured snippets, this tendency for stealing

traffic from publishers will likely increase. More

to that, it's featured snippets that are often

cited by voice assistants in response to queries.

Paid search expansion

A few years ago, Google changed Google

Shopping's organic model to pay-per-click. In

2016 paid ads in Local Search came around. The

trend will likely persist and we'll experience

more native-like ad formats in the near future.

By: Yauhen Khutarniuk

Head of SEO at SEO PowerSuite